The Parable of the White Russian

I was attending an event at a swanky hotel and I was bored. This was not my event.  I was a tagalong.  A plus one. After a while I decided to go to the bar and order a white russian. Where this desire came from I do not know but not having had one in quite some time I followed my heart. 

I sat down at the bar and placed my order. "I'd like a White Russian please."

"What's that?", the smiling bartender said to my disbelief.

"It's Khalua, vodka, and milk mixed together," I said pointing to each ingredient on the shelf as I listed them.

"Sorry, sir but we only have what is on the menu."

"But you have all the ingredients to make a White Russian. Just mix them up and make the drink."

"We can only serve what is on the menu," was the reply.

What kind of bartender will not make you the drink you request but only serve what it on the menu? That is ludicrous! Not to mention he had no idea what a White Russian is.

There was no point in arguing so I ordered a drink from the menu, a frozen mango margarita. I don't remember what the other drinks listed were but none of them were interesting. The mango margarita was delicious and I ordered one more but I was disappointed to not get a white Russian.

Months later at a different restaurant I placed the same order for a White Russian. It was not listed on their menu but a drink called a Bailey's shake was. I looked at their bar and saw all the proper ingredients for making a White Russian and I asked if the bartender could make one.

This picture is a little blurry but the Khalua and two kinds of vodka, Absolut and Stolichnaya, are clearly visible. The waiter returned and said sorry but they ran out of ingredients! That means this restaurant ran out of cream and milk? Really? So I ordered the Bailey's shake which is a shot of Bailey's with Tanduay.  What I got was totally unexpected.

Now I think these stories are very illustrative of the Philippines and Filipino society at large. Not many people here think outside of the box. They have all the ingredients to make anything they wish but they only make what is on the menu. It's only the same old over and over again. Nothing new. It's the same old corruption in politics. It's the same old manipulation in families. It's the same old societal failures with no one picking up the slack. It's the same old oligarchs running the show.

The bar is very much like the nation. It appears to be fully functioning and well stocked but the bartender does not even know how to make a simple drink. Much like the Philippines appears to be like a modern "democracy" with three branches of government but no one knows what the heck they are doing.

Perhaps what I have stated here is rather general. The Philippines is a large place yet the same things generally happen all over. I would like to think there is much room for improvement here but if no one is willing to improve anything then there is no room to improve. I am not sure anyone even knows how to improve.

In the meantime I just want a White Russian!

Pure Kino Bootlegs at The Chinese Mall

You have been to the Chinese Mall right?  It's full of fake phones, fake shoes, fake everything.  There might be an original in there somewhere. You just have to look. Bootleg DVD's also abound.  When you pass by the vendor she says, "Sir, you like movie?"  All the movies they have available are just common dreck I can get from the internet. In fact you can get practically ANY film from the internet.  Who needs physical copies?

This is all a preface to say that in the Chinese Mall in Bacolod, 888, there is a DVD/Blu-ray shop that is selling pure Kino and I am very impressed by their offerings despite the fact that they are all fakes. Let me show you just a sample.

To begin with we have the Stanley Kubrick collection. This is all of his films on 2 Blu-ray discs. Stanly Kubrick is the man who filmed the Apollo moon landing and filmed Barry Lyndon by candlelight! What an auteur. A real artist. But look at the bottom of the box.  It says "1080P Beyond High Definition." There is nothing beyond 1080P.  That is as high definition as you can get aside from 4K Ultra HD. Just about every film for sale in this shop had that "Beyond High Definition" tag.  This collection is not original and is fake.

Next up we have the Hayao Miyazaki collection spread across three discs.  Probably there are more than three discs since there are about 12 movies in each box. There is also a huge problem with this collection which screams bootleg. That is the films included are all Studio Ghibli and not exclusively Miyazaki films. Now he did found that studio but he did not direct all the films they produced. The gibberish translation on the cover also hints that these films are not genuine.

"Classic Works of Injury." I do not know what those Japanese characters actually mean but "classic works of injury" is not it.  There is a discussion about these particular bootlegs on Reddit. A good collection nevertheless.

This all 7 American Pie films.  You read that right. All 7 of them. This is not necessarily pure Kino but it is very interesting and you won't get it from regular bootleggers. This box lacks the "Beyond High Definition" tag on the bottom of the box.

Here we have a collection of films from Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. I have seen all these films.  The first one is 120 Days of Sodom and it is the most reprehensible film ever made. Bar none. Nothing compares to the filth is this movie. It also has nothing to do with the other three listed. There is in fact no Tetraology of Life which is how I can tell this is fake. The 1001 Nights, The Decameron, and The Canterbury tales are all part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life.

Although the outside of this box screams bootleg the inside does not reflect that.

There are 4 discs.  One for each movie. Each disc has their own artwork and it looks legit. I did not preview them but I bet the image looks good because they are probably ripped from the original DVD's.  

Finally we have a 4 disc set of the classic BBC series Civilisation. Who will buy this? Who cares enough to buy this? I am simply amazed this TV show is being stocked. You can watch it on Youtube. In episode one we are told:

Of course, civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity. Enough to provide a little leisure. But far more, it requires confidence. Confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, confidence in one's own mental powers. The way the stones of that bridge are laid is not only a triumph of technical skill, but it shows a vigorous belief in discipline and law. Energy, vitality - all the great civilisations or civilising epochs, have had a weight of energy behind them. People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversation, and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilisation but they are not what makes a civilisation. And a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.

How can Filipinos relate to that?

This TV series from 1969 is all about Western European art and architecture. A good series. The box it comes in leads me to think it could be original. The vendor did say the Blu-rays where this one was were all originals but I have my doubts.

Having said all that let me clarify what I mean when I say these are all likely fakes. These movies are most likely pirated copies burned to a disc and cleverly printed with legit artwork on the top of the disc. The Pasolini and Miyazaki collection's certainly are. Contrast that with regular bootleg DVD's which do not have any type of artwork on the disc so you have to look hard to figure out the top and bottom. The box artwork, at least for Kubrick, is the same as that of the original. Over all these fake Blu-rays are well done versions of the real thing. A lot of thought and work went into their production. You aren't getting merely a pirated movie burned to a disc. You are getting a very lovely package to go with it.

The whole enterprise is impressive to me. Somewhere in China someone is bootlegging art films and shipping them to the Philippines. Surely it must cost a lot to make them but then again there must be a market or else they would not be made. 

I Used to Think the Philippines was a Tragedy, Now I realise It's a Comedy

The title of this post is taken from a line in the new movie Joker. One possible interpretation of the movie is that it is about a man coming to terms with himself. He embraces his insanity with gusto. It's key to note that in the movie we do not witness a downward spiral into madness.  The man has been mad from the get-go. It is part of who he is. His insanity is innate. Putting on the clown mask allows Arthur Fleck to hide his identity and become the Joker.

You could say Arthur Fleck's insanity is part of his own personal culture. In the same way the culture of the Philippines is also innately insane. Foisting a foreign culture upon the Philippines only exacerbates this insanity by allowing their true identity to be masked.

To adapt another line from the movie:

What do you get when you cross Western culture with a society that has no idea how it works in spirit and treats it like trash?  You get what you deserve!

Ever since the Americans came and left the Philippines has tried its hardest to mimic a modern republican state with free democratic values but this is absolutely impossible because Western culture is completely alien to the Philippines. Here is a very relevant quote from Imperium by Francis Parker Yockey.

A central point when thinking about this subject is the growth and now the total supremacy of the Western idea of technics. The entire world of science is a reflection of Western man and no other, and we have seen Western technics conquer the world. We see our science being appropriated to varying degrees and in varying manners by every simian Culture on the planet which has advanced beyond the arboreal stage. The stone age Negro denizens of Africa, Haiti, New Guinea and the southern Philippines are fascinated by clocks, radios and even sails. When an American city wants to get rid of its old street cars, it sells them to Amerindian Mexico. The Semitic Arabs ride their Cadillacs and use rifles made in Belgium; both of which are bought with the gold of oil royalties from Wall Street, Dallas or London. The Oriental Chinese have learned well, and are expected to explode an atomic bomb at any moment. And even the half-Western Russians, from the days of Peter the Great, or even Rurik, have constructed their ships, cannon and rockets with European engineers. But does this mass appropriation of Western technics have the slightest effect on the inner and distinctive soul of the culture which appropriates? The answer is no, and we should not allow our foolish pride to think otherwise.

https://www.solargeneral.org/wp-content/uploads/library/imperium-ulick-varange-francis-parker-yockey.pdf

The "this subject" Yockey is referring to is the idea of the universality of all cultures and all men. The fact is all men are not created equal nor are all cultures men create equal. That is why a society like the Philippines appropriating Western culture and completely failing is not a tragedy but a comedy. What else could one expect? So let's have a laugh.

The Philippines finally has universal healthcare. Signed into law this year. But guess who's going to be running it?  The corrupt PhilHealth!

https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2019/08/18/philhealth-corruption-incurable/

Hoo-hoo-haaaaaaa!!!! Top level PhilHealth executives allegedly run a mafia where they file fake claims and rake in millions in a race to see who can steal the most from fake dialysis patients. Surely they are the best group to run the new Universal Health Care system.

Universal healthcare no doubt means the government want's their citizens to be healthy right? I guess that's why they cut the budget of the DOH and the PGH!

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/10/01/1956333/pgh-budget-cut-p456-million

“The PGH is often the first option and the last resort of the poor and middle class families to get the best medical treatment,” he said.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/24/19/doh-budget-for-2020-cut-by-p166-b-amid-measles-polio-rise-garin

Hoo-hoo-haaaaa!!! Cutting the budget to the hospital all the poor use and cutting funds to the DOH in the midst of two serious epidemics! What's even funnier is the budgets for the PGH and DOH have been restored but with one caveat; more pork for Duterte!

Let's just get straight to the punchlines and avoid all these long articles shall we?

Ferdinand Marcos plundered this country with one had and handed out bread and circuses with the other to placate the people and many believe his time of dictatorship is the golden days of the Philippines!

Cops bust drug suspects but keep the drugs to resell them in order to bust suspects but keep the drugs to resell them in order to.....!

During every election season scores die at the hands of motorcycle assassins!

Every year scores of politicians die at the hands of motorcycle assassins!

The Department of Tourism is so desperate for tourists they are marketing malls as tourist attractions!

The world's first anti-corruption court is the Philippines' very own Sandiganbayan and ever since it's founding has been backlogged for years!

The Philippines' Constitution, rather then being merely a set of rules for how each branch of government should function, sets forth a broad social program that has not and cannot be implemented!

The Philippines has had several constitutions over the years, casting them aside and rewriting them as they see fit which shows they do not know how a Republic should function nor can they enter into the genius of such a government. In contrast the USA has had one constitution for 230 years!

OFW culture has created a subculture of leeches who wait around at home for their remittances and without the remittances from abroad a large part of the economy would collapse!

Though these leeches spend their remittances and prop up the economy the nation still has an underclass of do-nothings lazing about who contribute nothing of substance to the nation or their community!

OFW culture only exists because all the jobs in the Philippines pay little and so many people remain without training or education and are forced to be maids to rich Arabs and Chinese!

Those OFWs who do have training such as nurses and engineers take their skills out of the country causing a massive brain drain and leaving the Philippines the worse off!

The greatest technological feat of the past 50 years is the internet where all human knowledge is stored and accessible but Filipinos only use the internet for social media and to play League of Legends!

Those who do know how to use the internet use it to dupe their fellow citizens into swallowing propaganda which is why many people believe Marcos' time of dictatorship is the golden days of the Philippines!

Every service both in the private and public sector in the Philippines has a black market and politicians are very willing to let those markets flourish so long as they get their kickbacks and votes!

Laws are written and passed with no way to implement them or if they are implemented are done in a manner contrary to what is stated in the law!  (See the GCTA law and RA 9003)

The PNP is tasked with enforcing traffic laws but nobody is monitoring the roads for overloaded motorcycles, overload tricycles, speeding vehicles, vehicles not using headlights at night, vehicles not staying in their lanes, and vehicles not obeying the laws in general!

The Philippines is a society where no one trusts anyone else which is why every business has an armed guard and every house is surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire with several dogs roaming both inside and outside the premises!

A culture that values surface over substance!

A culture that professes to be Christian but remains aloof from the solemn mysteries of the Trinity and God manifested in the flesh instead clinging ferociously to the pomp and idolatry of the Catholic church and the excesses of the Protestant church!

The only Christian nation in Asia which is also among the most corrupt in the world because the tenets of the Gospel have not penetrated into the souls of the people!

When the Americans set up shop the nation gradually accepted American jurisprudence practices but to this day there are no jury trials, the presumption of innocence is scoffed at as suspects are paraded before cameras like big game caught on the savannah, lawyers are regularly murdered, the right to a speedy trial is in word only as some trials take decades to reach a verdict, heinous crimes such as murder are settled financially, the PNP dissuades victims from filing charges against those who have harmed them, and many crimes only go to trial with assistance of private prosecutors!

Whoo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoo-Ha-Ha!!!!!

Laughter is the only appropriate response when contemplating the Philippines

In short in the Philippines we live in a society which is quite miraculous in that there is complete anarchy but somehow it doesn't all fall to pieces. What would have happened had the Spanish never landed on the shores of these islands? What would have happened had the US never taken possession of this nation? Would they still be living in bamboo huts and wearing loincloths like any other tropical tribe? Just as the Joker wears his mask of clown paint Filipinos wear the mask of Western Civilisation pretending they are modern men because they have cell phones. Wash away that mask and strip off that suit and what is left? The emaciated body of an insane man.

Ferdinand Marcos' Greatest Achievement

If you ask anyone what Ferdinand Marcos' greatest achievement is you will get a host of varied answers. Many think it's his multitudinous public works projects including roads, public buildings, power plants, and universities. On this list the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is touted as an accomplishment despite the fact that it was never even operational.

Are public works really the greatest accomplishment of Marcos? What makes an accomplishment great? The great men of the past are men who transcended their nation and their culture and their era, men who tapped into the eternal longings of humanity and have shown us what we are capable of. Think of the deeds of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Plato, Da Vinci, Columbus, or any other man who has brought light to humanity.

What did Marcos do that transcends the bounds of the Philippines and rises above all his other works? No one in Germany or the USA will be driving down roads he built or use electricity from power plants he constructed or study at universities he founded. There is only one thing that Marcos did which extends beyond the bounds of the Philippines and qualifies as a great achievement.

He allowed Francis Ford Coppola unlimited use of the military to film Apocalypse Now in the Philippines.

The Apocalypse Now Book, Peter Cowie, pg 15

Background

President Marcos and his wife were patrons of the arts. Imelda built the Philippine Cultural Centre as well as the Manila Film Centre. Marcos knew the power of film in molding society and encouraged Filipino filmmakers to improve their art. In a September 26, 1970 speech before the Manila Motion Pictures Producer Association he said:

When I speak to this gathering of film producers, artist and technicians. I am aware that I am speaking to a group whose work is vital and whose influence is enormous in our society. Those of us whose work is to lead and govern; look to this community to provide our people a vital and purposive entertainment industry and to harness that industry for the task of building progressives and healthy nation.

The present state of the industry, where it is indeed and how it is making use of its opportunities, suggest to my mind that there is a great deal that we can do to upgrade the quality of our films and to make them  truly relevant to our  lives and to our history as a nation. 

Philippine cinema has simply reached the point where it must either advance or regress, either live or die. 

It is for us now to seize these opportunities and make our film industry a truly vital force in the lives of our people and in the economy of our country. And I would like to tell you tonight that you are not alone in dreaming of this advancement; this concern, this hope, we share in common.

https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1970/09/26/address-of-president-marcos-at-the-induction-of-officers-of-the-manila-motion-pictures-producers-association/

Perhaps it was not what Marcos had in mind but during the 70's the Philippines attracted low budget sleaze and grindhouse film productions from America.

They Call Him Chop Suey. They Call Her Cleopatra Wong. They also called them cheap trash. Low-quality American-produced ‘70s movies for kids to make out to in drive-ins and small town cinemas. But they were also some of the most fun films ever to come out of the Philippines. 

Standing in for other tropical locations, the filmmakers would often, whether by design or not, obscure their actual settings. The jungles of Quezon province and beaches of Baler became the homes of crazed American doctors, the Viet Cong, even Satan himself. Filipino henchmen’s voices were dubbed to sound stereotypically Chinese, female Filipino prison guards were the “best gunslingers south of Pango Pango,” and black pirates attacked remote Philippine islands. Sometimes, Filipinos remained behind the camera, directing American actors.

https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/arts-and-entertainment/exploitation-films-philippine-b-movies

Apocalypse Now co-producer Fred Roos cut his teeth in the Philippines making these types of films.

Production coordinator Fred Roos had already made two low-budget films there for Monte Hellman, and had friends and contacts in the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now

These films would go on to inspire the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Perhaps Marcos saw some of them. Surely he saw both Godfather films and knew the name Francis Ford Coppola.

Securing Marcos' Support

The production of Apocalypse Now is the stuff of legend. Everyone went crazy and the principal actors were all stoned out of their minds during the whole shoot. Getting the film off the ground and greenlit was a chore as well. What Coppola needed was the support of the US military who had bases in the Philippines at that time. From Peter Cowie's book, The Apocalypse Now Book, pages 14-16 we read:

Still hoping for support from the American military, Frederickson dispatched the following brief to both the Deaprtment of National Defense in Washington, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines HQ in Manila. 

The story is set in Vietnam in 1968. It is about the demoralization wreaked by the Vietnam war on the young Americans who reluctantly served in the most unpopular war in US history. Nothing in it is derogatory to the Vietnamese nor American people, although its effect would be to question certain once-popular values and attitudes that made the Vietnam possible. 

Frederickson requested military technical advisers, military escorts, aircraft (mostly Huey helicopters), ordnance (firearms, artillery, etc.), military vehicles, and a radio communication system. The project budget is $13,000,000…Preparations and construction will take about 3 to 4 months. Actual filming, desired to start January 1976, may take anywhere from 4 to 6 months. Principal stars will be Marlon Brando, Steven McQueen or Clint Eastwood, James Caan, Yves Montand and Maria Schneider…There will be a staff of 65 foreigners plus about 500 Filipinos. As much as 2,000 local technicians, bit players and other talents will be hired…Locations for the filming have not been finalized. Pagsanjan, Los Baños, Batangas, Zambales, Davao, Mondora and Baler are tentatively considered. 

Meanwhile booth Roos and Frederickson had returned several times to the Philippines, criss-crossing the country in search of locations and dealing with the government. One of Frederickson’s best pals during his school days in Switzerland had been Giovanni Volpi, whose family had founded the Venice Film Festival. During a trip to Manila, Frederickson and Volpi met again by chance in the lobby of thier hotel. They chatted beside the pool and Frederickson explained his need to get the Filipino generals to provide Apocalypse production with helicopters and permit access to their military facilities. “He invited me to dinner that night,” smiles Frederickson. 

I went down to meet him in front of the hotel and there were these long limousines with flags on the fenders, and we drove over to the palace and had dinner with President Ferdinand Marcos and his aides. They put us in touch with the generals, and from then on its was pretty smooth. 

Coppola and Roos subsequently had an audience with Marcos to formalize his support for the venture. 

So, in the face of continued aloofness from Washington, a contract was signed between the Philippines Department of National Defense and Coppola Cinema Seven, dated 1 October, 1975. This imposed on the production no fee as such for the use of equipment and personnel, other than actual expenses and insurance against death and damages. Had there been no assurance that twenty Huey helicopters would be made available for the aerial attack sequence, the Philippines would never have been chosen as the site for filming and quite possibly the project might have been scrapped.

What a coincidence that co-producer Gray Frederickson just happened to run into an old friend in Manila. What an even stranger coincidence that this man happened to the be the son of the founder of the Venice Film Festival and was able to set up dinner with President Marcos that very night! Could it be that Volpi was assisting Marcos with putting together the 1975 Metro Manila Film Festival? That is likely and would be in line with his desire to advance the Philippine film industry into the future.

Filming

Filming the movie was, of course, a nightmare. Typhoons, drunkenness, drugs, uncooperative actors, pressure from the studios, and pressure from the AFP.

The Filipino Army and Air Force had, following Roos and Frederickson’s negotiations, been placed at Coppola’s disposal. President Marcos was involved in continual skirmishes with the “Communist“ rebel forces, and so the Huey helicopters assigned to Apocalypse Now were sometimes recalled at short notice throughout 1976.   

Cowie, pg. 49 

The first two weeks of April involved daily use of the helicopters on loan from the Philippine Air Force. There were only twenty-four operational Hueys in the country, and Coppola demanded fifteen of them for Kilgore’s dawn attack at Baler (after all, the US Army had ordered 838 Huey Cobras by the spring of 1968!) The machines were painted with US Army markings in the morning and repainted with Philippine Air Force decals at night. On 2 April, in the midst of rehearsing for a complicated shot, the choppers were diverted urgently to engage rebel forces in the south of the country. 

Cowie, pg. 50

Because of the civil war in the south, everyday, the government sends different pilots who haven't participated in the rehearsals, wrecking tens of thousands of dollars worth of shots. All day today, a Philippine air force general was on the set. There were rumors that the rebels were in the hills about 10 miles away. The Filipino commanders were afraid there could be an attack on the helicopters we were using. In the middle of a complicated shot, the helicopters were called away to fight the rebels.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse

Marcos even showed up on set towards the end of filming.

The loss of his leading man made Coppola even more defiant. He refused to shut down the production, however temporarily, and shooting continued at the Kurtz compound. Tavoularis had constructed a kind of bunker at the very core of the complex, packed with wires and switches that enabled both lighting and pyrotechnics to be operated by remote control. On one of these March days, President Marcos visited the area and no explosions could be set off by the crew in case he thought it was a rebel attack. 

Cowie, pg. 94

How fitting that President Marcos visited the set while scenes at the megalomaniac Kurtz's compound were being filmed. That particular set employed hundreds of Ifugao's as extras and the atmosphere was very wild.

Filming Apocalypse Now in the Philippines is best summed up this way:

For Coppola, the Philippines was a cheap stand-in for Vietnam. Where else could he rent an army, build and destroy whole villages and enlist thousands of extras for pennies a day? 

http://archive.is/3YlxN

Premiere and Legacy

Apocalypse Now had its premiere at Cannes on May 10, 1979 as a work in progress but ended up winning the Palme d'Or.

Apocalypse Now won the Palme d'Or for best film along with Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum – a decision that was reportedly greeted with "some boos and jeers from the audience".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now#Cannes_screening

The film was a success upon release earning a Best Picture nomination but winning for Best Cinematography and Sound and has gone on to be included in many lists as the best film of all time and certainly the best war film of all time.

Aside from influencing filmmakers and popular culture the world over the film also turned the spotlight on the Philippines' film industry. The contract Coppola signed with DND Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile set a precedent for future productions to be filmed in the Philippines.

Through it all, the movie left a lasting impression on the thousands of Filipinos who worked on the production, hung out with production staffers, and rubbed elbows with some future Hollywood heavyweights. Careers have crashed, burned, and flourished in the shadow of Apocalypse. Across 1976 and 1978, the Philippines became the unwitting center of Coppola’s hurricane. For a brief pocket of time, the country became a place of interest for Hollywood productions looking for cheap but adaptable locations. According to Henry Strzalkowski, an extra in Apocalypse’s production, George Lucas expressed interest in shooting Star Wars here, only to change his mind after hearing about Coppola’s troubled production. 

“It was Martial Law and we had a contract with the Department of National Defense,” explains Juban. “Naka-pirma si Enrile [Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile signed]. It was an honored contract. . . . The guns came from the Philippine Army, the AK47s came from the Philippine Constabulary, the trucks came from the Army Support Command . . . anything they wanted was here.”  

“That contract was the first of its nature done and it set the precedent for other films,” he says, “films like Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July.” Coppola had a deal with Marcos, according to the documentary. Production was to pay the military thousands of dollars per day, as well as overtime fee for the pilots. In return, Coppola could use the government’s entire fleet of helicopters, as long as they weren’t needed for the communist insurgency in the South. 

http://rogue.ph/apocalypse-now/

Remember the surfing scene with Robert Duvall? Charlie don't surf but Filipinos do. Apocalypse Now gave birth to Filipino surfing culture.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21941069

When a scene from Apocalypse Now was shot on an obscure beach in the Philippines in the late 70s, little did the film-makers know they were giving birth to the country's surfing culture. 

Apocalypse Now was not actually filmed in Vietnam, but in the little fishing town of Baler in the northern Philippines. 

As the cameras rolled, local Filipinos like Edwin Nomoro watched from the sidelines.  

Nomoro was 10 at the time, and he came down to the beach every day to see it transformed into a battle scene, complete with an entirely fake Vietnamese village and helicopters swooping overhead. 

But what excited him most was the sight of the actors surfing - something he'd never seen before. 

"When the filming finished, some of the crew left their surfboards behind, and my friend and I picked up the boards and taught ourselves how to surf," he says. "We've been surfing ever since." 

At first, Nomoro and his friends found it difficult because there was no-one around to teach them. 

"But we studied it, and learned, and now - no-one can explain what it feels like. Only a surfer knows the feeling," he says, smiling. 

Once they got the hang of it, the boys started teaching others, and as word spread, tourists began coming to the little town to learn to ride the waves at Charlie's Point, as it became known. 

Nomoro was able to turn his passion into a way of making a living, and more than 30 years on, he still earns money from the industry he helped to create. 

"I have several rooms to rent. I also have some surfboards for hire," he says. "It's really improved my life. It helps me feed my family." 

Baler's success as a surfing centre has rippled out to other parts of the Philippines, such as Surigao, La Union and Pagudpud. 

"Baler is the birthplace of Philippine surfing," says Mac Ritual, a local tour guide.

Apocalypse Now continues to live and breathe. In 2001 Coppola released an extended version, Apocalypse Now Redux. This year, the film's 40th, anniversary, he has released a third version of the film, Apocalypse Now: Final Cut. 

Without Marcos allowing Coppola unlimited use of AFP equipment, during martial law and a communist insurgency no less, this film would not have happened. In light of the impact Apocalypse Now has made globally I believe Marcos' deal with Coppola is his greatest achievement.  Just imagine if Marcos had denied Coppola's proposal and he was forced to abandon the project?

"The horror, the horror."

In the Philippines No One Is Safe From Motorcycle Assassins

When one thinks of motorcycle assassins in the Philippines politicians come to mind. So many politicians are gunned down on a regular basis. But it's not only politicians who feel the wrath of an unknown assailant. Sometimes it's just normal regular people.  Like these two.

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/01/13/1884564/bowling-champ-shot-dead-san-juan

A member of the national bowling team was killed by a lone gunman  in San Juan City on Friday. 

Senior Superintendent Dindo Reyes, San Juan police chief, identified the victim as Angelo Nathaniel Constantino. 

Based on the information they have gathered, the police official said Constantino worked as a bowling coach and won a gold medal in the World Youth Championship in Venezuela in 1992. 

The shooting happened at the second floor of the E-Lanes Bowling Center in Barangay Greenhills at around 5 p.m. 

Quoting a police report, Reyes said the victim was having snacks at a restobar when an unidentified assailant wearing a face mask approached him. 

According to a witness, the gunman posed as a customer and even talked with the cashier. 

The assailant pulled out a handgun and shot Constantino once in the head. The victim died while being rushed to a hospital.

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/01/20/1886531/hog-trader-gunned-down-malabon

A man in the hog meat business was shot dead by motorcycle-riding assailants in Malabon Friday.  

Rolando Ruado, 46, was driving his motorcycle, which has a side car he used for hog meat deliveries, when the assailants shot him in Barangay Maysilo at around 3:30 p.m. 

The victim’s widow told police probers that Ruado had a grudge with a neighbor.

The death of Rolando Ruado could be the result of a personal grudge. Maybe there was loud music or the dog messed in his yard or any number of things. Same with the bowler. Could be a personal grudge of some sort. But in any healthy well functioning society no grudge would be settled this way. Only a sick society has an epidemic of motorcycle assassins freely running about shooting whoever they are paid to shoot as a way of settling disputes be they neighbourly or political.

Too many people like to chalk up the seemingly recent spate in motorcycle killings to the violent rhetoric of Duterte but this is not the case. These killings have been happening regularly for years.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/nation/metro-manila/01/28/14/pnp-riding-tandem-cases-reached-3000-2013

Don't think you are immune. Even if you make up with your neighbour after angering him you have no idea what is going through his head. Revenge is a dish best served cold and in the Philippines it's best served up by delivery from motorcycle riders.

A Response to Recent Criticism

It is not profitable to give a rebuttal to every bit of criticism that comes your way but sometimes a rebuttal must be made in the interest of truth and so it is in this case that I offer a rebuttal to an article posted at Joeam.com which concerns comments I made on Twitter. 

JoeAm's avatar

A reader sent me a link to a JoeAm article about the conflict in the WPS. I thought it was a good article. Full of facts and information. I posted it on my Facbook page and then I followed JoeAm on Twitter. The next day I saw this tweet from JoeAm:

https://twitter.com/societyofhonor/status/1012119137395486721

There is something fundamentally wrong with this thought which is that the Philippines has been an obscene , morally corrupt, ratty police state (corrupt PNP anyway) long before Duterte. The first anti-corruption laws were written in the 50's and the Sandiganbayan is the first court in the world dedicated to government corruption cases and was so for nearly 30 years! That is how corrupt this nation is. 

Later on in the day GMA posted a story about corrupt PNP officers so I posted a comment with a link to my article on PNP corruption and I tagged JoeAm. That resulted in a back and forth where I was called a racist Chinese troll.  You can read that whole conversation here:

https://twitter.com/gmanews/status/1012153863087026177

This person blocked me and I took offence at that because I had done nothing worthy of being blocked except to give her facts about how the culture shapes the nation. Not a single thing I wrote was racist in nature or in tone. I logged into my second Twitter account and sent JoeAm a few messages indicating that she was being immature and childish for blocking me because she did not wish to deal with facts.

https://twitter.com/Philippinesfail/status/1012212303784075264

You can click on the links for all of these Twitter feeds and read them for yourselves and see what exactly transpired. This person was more interested in my name, Philippinefails, than in any of the facts I had to offer.

That is all the background to an article recently posted by JoeAm which is directed towards myself.

https://joeam.com/2018/07/02/beware-anti-filipino-racism-is-rising/

Here is the pertinent quote from this article:

I’ve taken to insisting that people drop the culturally insulting line or leave my discussion threads. I blocked one person who responded to my request with yet another denigrating line. He returned immediately, overriding the block somehow, to call me immature for blocking him. Clearly, this is a malicious effort and it is being conducted by people with technical means.

What a joke! 

This person does not know how Twitter works and that anyone can have more than one account and simply use that to "override the block." But instead of thinking clearly JoeAm has declared I am part a malicious effort which is "being conducted by people with technical means." Well ok.  She got me.  Here is a picture of me and my Chinese troll hacker gang:

I want to take a moment to pore over this article and show you just how intellectually and factually bankrupt it is. 

JoeAm starts with this:

I’ve recently noticed a peculiar consistency of some commentary in my social media discussion threads that I find troubling.

But she offers no examples of this commentary. The reader is supposed to take her word for it.

Old racial quotes from Americans describing Filipinos as lazy and unable to govern themselves are among the materials being circulated.

Which quotes? Who said them? And in what context? Here is a link to a letter written in 1720 by a Spanish Jesuit which details Filipino character:

http://www.philippinehistory.net/views/1720sanagustin.htm

Are the quotes referred to of the same nature as this 300 year old letter? Are they saying the same things this Jesuit did in 1720?  She does not tell us what these quotes are so the reader is left guessing. How is anyone able to intelligently comment if they do not know exactly what is being discussed? 

I was so struck by three separate “racist” commentaries arriving in my discussions on the same day that I began to wonder if this is the latest Chinese-inspired trolling line. Denigrate Filipinos in racial terms, with the end point being “they are not worth saving”.

If this person is so struck by these comments you would think she would offer up a few examples but she does not. Why? How does China come in to the picture? Why does she think that whatever she has encountered is Chinese inspired trolling? She offers no explanation and the reader is left in the dark.

I suspect Filipinos of rich or recent Chinese heritage are put in an awkward place by such matters, as I am when old racist American quotes are hauled out and used as if nothing has changed since 1900.

Again what are these quotes? She does not say. But I refer to the 300 year old letter written by a Jesuit and you tell me if Filipino character and culture are not the same as ever. And if that does not suffice I refer you to this 30 year old Atlantic article about Filipino culture and you tell me anything has changed in 30 years!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1987/11/a-damaged-culture/505178/

Is this essay from The Atlantic racist? Basically all my talking points come from this article. A lot of them anyway. This article is pinned at the top of my Twitter feed.

I’ve taken to insisting that people drop the culturally insulting line or leave my discussion threads. I blocked one person who responded to my request with yet another denigrating line. He returned immediately, overriding the block somehow, to call me immature for blocking him. Clearly, this is a malicious effort and it is being conducted by people with technical means. 

It is a nasty world out there. We ought not be naive about it.

Here is where my part in the article comes in. What denigrating and insulting thing did I say? JoeAm declines to say. The reader is just supposed to take her words at face value. Go and read those Twitter feeds I linked above and tell me exactly what I wrote that is denigrating to Filipinos. If you read those feeds you will see that we were actually in the GMA discussion thread and not on the JoeAm discussion thread. No

Just because I know how to work my way around the internet does not mean I am part of a malicious effort. Such a charge is lazy. It indicates that this person does not want to interact with facts and is naïve.

How can we distinguish a manipulative racial argument from a sincere, pro-Philippines argument? 

• I think one difference is hope. The manipulative arguments will say there is no hope for making anything out of Filipinos. The earnest arguments will seek to BUILD hope . . . and opportunities . . . for Filipinos, rather than make them carry the burdens of history as a racial stigma.

• Another difference is facts. Earnest discussions will not be about adjectives but about nouns and verbs.

• And a third difference is a clear willingness to listen. Genuine discussions have it. Trolls do not.

Pretty ironic list here. What are some examples of these manipulative arguments she mentions? I find it confounding that not one single example of a racist argument is given in this article which ask she question, "Is anti-Filipino racism rising?" If I was writing about the supposed rise of racism I would give some specific  instances of this racism to support my thesis.

You can't tell people they have to listen if you are not also willing to listen to them. Genuine discussion does not always happen on the internet but I have never blocked anyone on social media because I listen to and tolerate everyone. It appears JoeAm is the troll and not me.

"People on the internet are saying mean things about Filipinos and it's all Chinese inspired trolling." That is her article distilled to its essence. This whole article is one big fuzzy-wuzzy generality. There are no specifics. There is nothing to deal with. It's just assertions and feelies with no facts. The question: "Is anti-Filipino racism rising" is not even answered but the answer is assumed to be yes despite a complete lack of proof.

I think what JoeAm took the most offence at from me was the following tweet:

It was this tweet that caused her to respond:

The point I was getting at is that Duterte did not arise out of a vacuum. He is a product of the culture. Anyone who will take his place will be a product of the same culture. It's not to say Filipinos are stupid and dumb or to beat up on them or denigrate them. It's to say Filipinos are Filipinos. Like all people they are products of their culture. It's right in the tweet, "The problem is the character of the people." That character is shaped by the culture. 

JoeAm did write a very nice and factual article about the dispute in the WPS and I'm sure there are adhere great articles on her website. President Aquino even quote her in his last speech before he left Malacañang. But when it comes to culture and race and how both shape a nation she does not get it. It's kind of funny that her very first blog post is about these issues of race and nationalism.

If you want to know why any people group nation is the way it is you must look at the culture. That is rather obvious but according to JoeAm that is racist. According to JoeAm nationalism has nothing to do with skin colour or place of birth, which are the qualities to which she reduces race, and there really is no such thing as race but it would be better if all races mixed because then we can live in peace and harmony since everyone will be a mongrel. What a contradiction.

It seems to me nationalism is important to: (1) live harmoniously according to commonly accepted rules, (2) gather enough resources to better oppose aggressor states, (3) huddle together for warmth and comfort, or (4) organize an economy that can compete fairly for prosperity. These are moral, military, security and economic needs and have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin or where one was born.

I’m not really sure why so many Filipinos believe it is somehow important to stay fundamentally Filipino. The morality is screwed up by widespread law-bending and corruption, the country can barely feed the ever-birthing hordes, the place is pretty warm already, and the economy can’t spit into the wind for distance. What are they trying to preserve? The hills have been cleared and are washing into the seas, the reefs have been dynamited to gravel, and the fish have been stripped so all that is left are those spiked little creatures that you should avoid stepping on lest you have to hop quickly to get a friend to pee on your foot.

Racial stereotypes are born of fear and misunderstanding and invariably lead to unfairness and punitive behavior. The sooner the whole world cross-breeds itself into a fine yellowish brown tone, the better off we will be. 

http://thesocietyofhonor.blogspot.com/2010/04/the-race-card.html

Notice how JoeAm questions why Filipinos want to remain Filipino and then equates certain behaviours with being Filipino! How racist of her. Then she says racial stereotypes are born of fear! Racial stereotypes are born of observation not fear as she has just demonstrated!

JoeAm does not understand that race is much more than skin deep. It goes right to the DNA and is an essential part of any person and nation. A casual glance at the various people groups and societies around the world should be convincing enough. Racial unity, not diversity, is the strength of a people. Theories to the contrary are completely modern and we see what kind of societies those theories have formed in Europe and the USA where people now have virtually no history or identity except with the products they consume. This is not the place to get into theories of race or ethnos and nationalism and the connection between the two. You can find many useful studies online and in the library. Read Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee for starters.

Next JoeAm outs herself as an old hippie who has drunk the Kool-Aid and thinks everyone is absolutely equal and ethnic nationalism is economically dangerous and culturally boring.

Now, on the other side of the big pond, the US, after its internally hard fought epiphany of the 1960’s, leads the world in setting race aside in favor of competency. The smarter you prove to be in an applied way, where smarts has value to the government or businesses, no matter where you are from or what you look like, or even how many legs you have, you have a shot at becoming a citizen.  

It seems to me that countries that consign themselves to a closet of culturally closed nationalistic prerogatives relegate themselves to: (1) energy wasted defending against imagined foreign ghosts, rather like Chicken Little’s friends running about shouting “the sky is falling”, and (2) non-competitive economic development, as high-skill competition requires getting the best available brains, wealth, technology and productive moxie, no matter where they are from. Not to mention, (3) culturally closed societies risk being really boring, and (4) stand as remnants of outdated thinking of man as a small animal.

Joe has obviously never heard of affirmative action which sets aside competency in favour of race and gender. In America to be qualified you have to be marginalised! There is really too much to comment on here. JoeAm is dead wrong. This kind of thinking is what has lead to the illegal immigration and refugee crises and the subsequent rise in crime in Europe and the USA. With all the rape going on in Sweden that country is no longer a boring place that's for sure. I wonder if JoeAm thinks any of the racially homogenous tribes in northern Luzon are boring.

And this is all in her first blog post ever!

I will end this article with a definition of nation as found on Wikipedia.

A nation is a stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, ethnicity or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. A nation is distinct from a people, and is more abstract, and more overtly political than an ethnic group. It is a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity, and particular interests.

Black's Law Dictionary defines a nation as: 

A people, or aggregation of men, existing in the form of an organized jural society, usually inhabiting a distinct portion of the earth, speaking the same language, using the same customs, possessing historic continuity, and distinguished from other like groups by their racial origin and characteristics, and generally, but not necessarily, living under the same government and sovereignty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

See how race, ethnicity, culture, and nationhood all tie together?

"No Filipino Consciousness"

Here is a story that fulfils every stereotype about Filipinos you can think of. Many of them anyway. 

http://usa.inquirer.net/10419/first-fil-federal-judge-lorna-schofield-no-filipino-consciousness-growing

Born in Indiana, Schofield traced her roots to New Haven’s blue collar community. Her father left the family when she was 3. Her mother, Priscilla Tiangco, a pharmacist from Batangas who graduated from UP, raised her as a single parent. 

“I didn’t have much of an Asian identity,” she said. “The people of Indiana overlooked the fact that I was different…that my mother spoke with an accent.” 

Schofield conceded being raised an all-American girl. No speaking Tagalog at home, and eating potatoes while her mother ate rice. Hence, she acknowledged no real Filipino consciousness developed as she was growing up. She did not feel like a minority. 

“I have a theory,” she said on why her mother raised her the way she did. “She was in college during the war. I read her transcript, and one of her years in college was interrupted. When the Americans came, she saw them as liberators and heroes. Since then, she wanted to become American, marry an American and have American children.” Her mother died when Schofield was 20.

Here we have a second generation Filipino-American who grew up far from the culture of the Philippines. She is not even a Fil-Am. She is an American. That is where she was born and that is the land she knows.  

Her mother purposefully raised her in a way that she would have no "Filipino consciousness" because she recognised the superiority of Americans and American culture. They were heroes and liberators. As a result of this upbringing we see that Schofield is now a very successful woman. 

But here is the rest of the story.

As it was in Indiana, many in the profession were not aware she was Asian. She recalled a conversation with a colleague right after she became a partner, when she said the firm had another minority partner. The colleague asked, “Who?” That anecdote elicited soft laughter. 

When Senator Charles Schumer recommended her, and later President Obama nominated her, to the position of Article III Judge of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, Schofield reached out to the Filipino community for support. Diversity was important to the process; it was to Senator Schumer and to President Obama, she said.

She didn’t know any Filipino organizations, but the community, such as lawyers’ groups, also reached out to her and welcomed her warmly. In the past year and a half, she has become visible, speaking at clubs and marching in the June 2 Philippine Independence Day Parade on Madison Avenue. 

“After my mother died I had no contact with Filipinos,” she said, her contact limited to her mother’s sister in Manila, until she too died a few years later. 

On December 14, 2012, her historic confirmation as the first Filipino American federal judge in American history was announced. In congratulating her, the Asian American Bar Association of New York described Schofield as “a highly qualified jurist” whose life story is the “epitome of the American Dream.” 

Schofield is now discovering, perhaps for the first time, her Filipino identity. After receiving the support of Filipino organizations in the confirmation process, she pledged to try to give back to the Filipino community whenever asked, of course within the considerable ethical constraints placed on federal judges. 

This lady was fully immersed and adrift in American society and culture. Her own colleagues did not even know she was Filipino. It took Obama and Schumer to reduce her to her Filipino heritage as "diversity was important to the process" of promoting her through the federal justice system. Is that really all they saw in her? A triple threat of: woman, minority, and qualified?

She says she reached out to the Filipino community for support after she was nominated but after her mother died she had no contact with Filipinos and so she knew no Filipino organisations. However the Filipino community found out about her and reached out to her. The Asian American Bar Association of New York congratulated Schofield, a woman who says she never had much of an Asian identity, for being a great Asian American who epitomises the American Dream.

In the last paragraph we read the most interesting piece of all. 

she pledged to try to give back to the Filipino community whenever asked, of course within the considerable ethical constraints placed on federal judges. 

What has happened here is the Filipino community has latched onto this woman like barnacles on a whale and are likely attempting to culturally blackmail and shame her into give theming legal assistance. And her response is she will give back so long as it is within the bounds of the ethical constrains on her position!

If this lady had been born and raised in the Philippines, been baptised in Filipino culture, she would have tasted and eaten the corrupt fruits of Philippine politics and would be as corrupt and unethical as anyone else. It would be second nature to her because that is the legal and political culture in this country.

What this story showcases and confirms is that it is Filipino culture which is the problem and not Filipinos themselves. With Filipino blood coursing through her veins this lady grew up unaware of and not indulging in that identity and not even caring about it. It also shows us the nasty side of identity politics and hyphenated Americans. Why should she try to help them simply because of her genetics?

She is an American. She belongs to America. But the Asians and the Filipinos want to bask in her glory even though they had no part in her making. There is nothing for her to give back because she never took anything from the Filipino community or Philippine culture except for her genetics. 

Yet the headline blares that she is a "Fil-Am" when she is no such thing at all. It's Fake news!